Spare Wheels
by kittyfantastico
Summary: 6 months after Chosen, Dawn narrates the lives of the Slayers. Dawn POV. Please RR!


This is my first Buffy fic so I'm a bit unsure about it and would really appreciate reviews!  
  
Huge thanks to my beta, Bill, for doing such a great job :)  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
15th November 2003,  
  
Five reasons why I'm writing this:  
  
I'm extremely bored. And when I say bored I mean 'So incredibly bored out of my mind that I can't even bear to sit staring out of the window anymore'  
  
We just stopped at a gas station and Xander bought me this book. It's a bit thin for a diary, and it probably won't last long but it'll do for now and when it's finished I can always get a new one.  
  
I'm a part of something special. It's something that no one has ever dared to try before, and I feel proud that my sister was the one who thought of it. She was the one who began our story, and I believe it's a story worth telling.  
  
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of years from now this book may be useful to the people who are fighting the war that wages on around us. The war that is never over but continues in the dark of night. As long as there is evil, there will be those who fight it. And that's where we come in.  
  
And lastly, I have read the Watchers' diaries. And they are dull. So dull, actually, that I only managed to read a few pages of each. I figure, if people are going to use this for research purposes they should only be bored half to death instead of the whole way. I may not know much about fighting techniques, but the Watchers' diaries are severely lacking in insight into the Slayer's life. And that I can provide.  
  
I suppose, since I am going to be narrating our lives for the foreseeable future, I should start by writing a little about myself. My name is Dawn Summers and I am seventeen years old. You may be wondering what a normal teenage girl has to do with the battle against the forces of evil. But I'm not normal. Not so very long ago, I was just a ball of mystical energy until a group of monks transformed me into a human girl in order to hide me from Glory, an evil Hell-God who wanted to use me as a key to open the barriers between dimensions and return to her own nightmarish realm. But we don't talk about that. EVER. But even if that weren't true I'd still be far from normal because my sister is Buffy Summers, the greatest vampire slayer ever.  
  
It's been six months since we left Sunnydale, our departure marked by the town being swallowed into the Hellmouth. In that time a lot has happened. We were exhausted after the battle, and half-afraid to look back on what we had left behind us. I have no idea how long we spent on that bus; who was driving or what route we took. But, somehow, we ended up in LA. We only stayed there long enough to rest and rejuvenate ourselves, to assess the wounds of the injured and to make sketchy plans for the future. Buffy went off by herself for a few hours - I think she went to see Angel. I overheard her talking with Giles, as he studied a map, deciding where to take us. She said that Angel had offered her the Hyperion but that she had refused because this was 'his town'. Sometimes, when I think about it, I wish we had stayed in LA. It made sense to use the Hyperion - it's certainly big enough for all of us, and LA has more than it's fair share of things that go bump in the night. But, Buffy is Buffy and what she says goes. So we moved on. We passed through Phoenix and Santa Fe, Oklahoma and St. Louis; every new town offering a new challenge and a new fight. Eventually, battle-scarred and minus a few of those we started out with, we made it to Cleveland.  
  
It's not so bad here, really. The abandoned and run-down hotel we live in is nicer than the Hyperion anyway. Or it will be, when Xander's got it all fixed up. Much to my disgust, Buffy and Giles insisted that I start at the local high school, but after the first few agonizing weeks, I've started to find that I actually kind of like it. Not that Buffy will ever know - my campaign to stay at home with the Slayers my age still rages on. There are about sixty of them now. Slayers, I mean. We have girls from all over the world - some of them as young as nine years old. It must be tough on the ones who don't speak English (and believe me there are many of them) but Giles is a huge help and I think he's secretly enjoying having so many different languages around the house. They train every day, and at night Buffy and Faith take a group of Slayers out on patrol. Even the little ones go through a rigorous training session with Kennedy once a day, and the better fighters of them are taken on patrol with the more experienced Slayers. The poor kids are terrified of Kennedy, and I can't say I blame them. The other day I found a cluster of them in tears, wailing in about five different languages that she was never pleased with them and had forced them all to do a hundred press-ups. I get on fairly well with Kennedy, but that was too much so I yelled at her for five minutes straight and then marched her off to apologise to the still-bawling group of little girls. Needless to say, they've all been much happier since. Kennedy would beat me in a fight but my sister could kick her ass all the way back to Sunnydale and she knows it. No one messes with Dawn Summers!  
  
We're on our way back from New York at the moment. Xander's driving, which means we get the radio on a station that plays music which was actually written in this century, Giles is asleep and snoring comically (although so loudly that it's now bordering on irritating), Andrew is listening to music on his CD Player, and doesn't realise that we can hear him singing along out of tune, and Principal Wood - I mean Robin; I still haven't got used to the fact that he's just a friend now, and no longer my school principal - is on the phone to Faith. They're a strange couple, I wouldn't have thought they suited each other at all but their relationship seems to be progressing really well. I don't really know much about relationships and all that, but I think they're good for each other. Buffy thinks so too. When they first started dating she told me that Faith needed someone who she could trust, someone she could have a steady relationship with.  
  
That just leaves Callie and I. Callie is the newest - and, at just six years old, the youngest - addition to our merry band of Slayers. I can't even imagine what she must be going through right now, but whatever it is, it makes me glad that I'm not a Slayer. She hasn't spoken a word since we left New York. At the gas station Xander bought her a magazine and a sandwich, but they're still sitting on the seat next to her, untouched by both her fingers and her eyes. I don't think she's even moved since we left. From my seat near the back of the school bus I can see her, curled up as small as she can get, her knees pulled up to her chin and the ends of her shoulder-length blonde hair bobbing about her shoulders when she occasionally cranes her neck to glance for a fleeting moment at the scenery flashing past. I wonder if she understands what she is, or where she's going. Both of her grandfathers were Watchers, so her parents were well aware of the Slayer's importance in the world - they were even proud that their daughter had been called. Giles talked to them for a long time about what has happened to the Slayer line. I felt a bit uncomfortable, sitting with a cup of tea balanced precariously on my lap and pretending to look out of the windows or at books on the shelf, while actually listening to their conversation.  
  
"I-I understand that this must be very painful for you. She's very young," Giles said, somewhat nervously.  
  
"Perhaps too young," replied Callie's mother, so quietly that I had to strain to hear it.  
  
"But we can't train her ourselves, you know that," her father argued in equally soft tones.  
  
Callie's mother sighed in defeat. I turned my attention to a dramatically over-decorated vase full of beautiful flowers on a table near the chair on which I was sitting.  
  
"Maybe she would be better off with other Slayers," she said reluctantly.  
  
"If you don't want her to leave you, she can join us in a few years," Giles offered.  
  
"That's very kind of you, Mr. Giles, but you've driven all this way just to see us," this was Callie's father again. I have to say, if that was his reason for letting Callie go, then he desperately needs to get his priorities sorted. He turned to his wife, catching my eye as he did so and I guiltily turned to stare through the window at a tree on the other side of the road. "Darling," he began, taking his wife's hands in his, "Callie's going to have questions about how powerful she's become. Mr Giles and his friends can answer those questions a million times better than we could. They can help her, and protect her; we can't do that. We can't keep her from her destiny. She's a Slayer! You know what that means, how important she is, and you know your dad would have wanted her to reach her full potential."  
  
She gave a shaky nod, and hastily wiped away the tears that had started to fall. Getting up, she went to the door and called for her daughter to come downstairs. All eyes were expectantly on the door as a light thudding was heard on the stairs and then a little girl bounded into the room. The light faded from her watery-blue eyes when she saw a room full of people before her, and she faltered with one hand on the doorframe, the other hand self-consciously pushing a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.  
  
"Come here, Callie," said her father, holding out his hand for her to take. She walked towards him quickly and took his hand, looking at no one but him with a slightly terrified expression on her face. Andrew coughed uncomfortably and went bright red when everyone immediately turned to look at him. "This is Mr. Giles," said her father, indicating Giles. Pulling her onto his lap, Callie's father began to explain everything to her. I tried not to stare at her, but my eyes kept being drawn back to her little face. During the course of the explanation, she registered confusion, shock, understanding and finally horror.  
  
"You - you want me to leave?" she asked in a tiny voice.  
  
"No, honey, no. Don't think that," her father hurried to reassure her. "We don't want you to leave, but we think it's for the best. You may not feel like it now, but sooner or later you're going to want to explore your power, and if you stay with us, we won't be able to help you or keep you safe. Mr. Giles will take good care of you. We're only doing this to keep you safe, can you understand that?"  
  
She nodded slowly and then turned to Giles. "Where do you live?" she asked politely.  
  
"Uh. . .ah. . .Cleveland," he stammered, amazed at the little girl's reaction to all this.  
  
She considered that for a minute, and I could almost see her mind working, the look of concentration on her face was so intense. "That's not too far," she said confidently, and I couldn't help smiling at her attempt to appear more knowledgeable than she was. "I can come home for visits sometimes." It was a statement not a question, and announced with an air of such decidedness that I wouldn't put it past her to hop on a bus one day and make it home all by herself.  
  
"Of course you can," Giles said quickly.  
  
"And your parents can come to Cleveland sometimes too," I added. Callie looked at me, apparently noticing me for the first time, and smiled.  
  
"Thanks, we'd like that." Callie spoke for her family and sounded for all the world like a grown woman, graciously accepting an invitation to stay with relatives.  
  
Later, after she had packed and loaded her bags onto the bus, she stood clinging to her parents, while we watched surreptitiously from the windows. They said their goodbyes quietly and sadly, and I had to strike up an idle conversation with Andrew because I couldn't bear to watch. I glanced back at them as Callie gave her parents a final, mournful look and followed Giles onto the bus. Her mother broke down and covered her mouth with her hand in a futile attempt to stop the sobs that shook her body.  
  
And that, dear readers, is how Callie Stevenson entered our lives. She looks so afraid, and so unhappy. I should go and talk to her, but I can't think of anything to say that won't sound either really patronizing, or unbelievably lame. Well, whatever I say, it's gotta be better than saying nothing.  
  
"Hey, Callie, are you okay?" That was the best I could come up with? Of course she's not okay! She's just found out that she's a vampire slayer, and that every monster she's ever been afraid is hiding under her bed is very much real, and on top of that she's being taken away from her parents! God, I'm such an idiot. She obviously thinks so too, because she didn't reply she just looked at me.  
  
"What are you writing?" I was so stunned to hear her ask me that, that I dropped my pen and it rolled all the way down to the front of the bus.  
  
I decided not to pick it up immediately and instead I told her that it was a sort of diary, telling the stories of all the Slayers that live with us. She seemed interested, and it was something to talk about in an attempt to cheer her up, so I offered to read it to her. I flicked back the pages until I was at the start, and began to read. To start with, she followed the words on the page as I read them, but I was reading too fast and soon she couldn't keep up. Instead, she fixed her attention on me and watched contentedly as I read her the story so far. She was still desperately unhappy, but my comments on Giles' snoring and Andrew's out of tune singing raised a giggle and a half-hearted smile. I was almost finished reading to her, skipping out the part where I eavesdropped on her parents conversation regarding her leaving, and answering her questions when Principal - no, his name is Robin! - came over to me. He held out a stack of books to me and, sensing that she was in the way, Callie moved back to her original seat.  
  
"What?" I asked, somewhat annoyed. I felt like I had been making progress with Callie.  
  
"I just got off the phone with Faith. She told me she'd taken a group out on patrol and they came across a group of demons. A sort of cult."  
  
"What, and they couldn't just kill them? It's not like there was only one or two Slayers," I muttered, apparently not quietly enough.  
  
"Dawn, Faith's worried. These demons were too strong for Buffy, Faith, Kennedy, Vi and Rona as well as about ten other Slayers. They - they're not sure if Vi's gonna make it. Here's Faith's description of them - just get working on it, okay?"  
  
"Please would be nice," I said, being unnecessarily difficult. I've been stuck on a school bus for God knows how many hours; I'm really not in the mood for research right now. He seemed to understand that, because his voice softened a bit.  
  
"Please." With that, he took the top book on the pile and retreated to his seat further up the bus.  
  
These books have gotten really dusty. I guess that's because we haven't used them in so long. We haven't needed to - since we faced The First Evil there hasn't been anything we couldn't just fight straight away. This must be bad. Giles insisted that we keep half of the books in the bus "just in case". Sometimes I wonder if he's psychic.  
  
Well, I suppose I'd better get on it. . . .I wonder what we're up against this time.  
  
TBC. . .  
  
PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!!!!! 


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